Reflections

Sunday, January 20, 2019

Friday, December 14, 2018

“I am worried,” Sumitra said to
Arnava. “I don’t think that message we found in that room was a
prank.”

They were in the room which Sumitra
had chosen for his paintings. It was near the artificial waterfall in
the palace gardens, and there was an ornamental fountain in the
middle of the large circular room. The room had semi circular broad
windows which were large enough for a person to get through. There
was ornamental lattice work on the window panes and cream coloured
gauzy curtains. All the windows opened to the garden, one showing the
waterfall, another the grove of mango trees, yet another the winding
jasmine vines, and then there was the door itself which opened onto a
path with flowering creepers forming a natural canopy over it.

It was a room in which it was
possible to have a private conversation without fear of
eavesdroppers, since the sound of the waterfall and the ornamental
fountain masked most sounds, especially if someone was talking in in
low voices and Sumitra and Arnava were talking in very low voices.
The room itself was large with the windows providing light, and the
domed ceiling was made of glass, so there was always daylight coming
in, and there were a row of flowering plants near one wall, and the
rest of the room was bare, except for the fountain and the easel with
an unfinished portrait resting on it. Arnava stood close to the
portrait, as if examining it, and Sumitra stood to his right, also
facing the portrait, though his face was half turned towards his
brother as he spoke.

Arnava glanced to the windows and
door as if to make certain they were alone. “I got a message to go
the deserted mansion at the northwest corner of the Trader’s
street. It said we were all in danger.” His voice was so low,
Sumitra had to lean in close to hear him. “It said to go alone…
and the note… it burned up when I finished reading.”

Sumitra sucked in a breath. “I
don’t like this. Did you go?”

“I did, and… well, there was
this…thing…”

“Thing?” Sumitra frowned.

“I don’t know what to call it,
it wasn’t human.” Arnava licked his lips. “It… It felt evil,
and it had a voice that still gives me shivers. It.. It told me that
the usurper must die, and it mentioned Bhaskara by name.”

“That’s the second time that
term has been used for our brother.” Sumitra said, his frown
deepening. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”

“And you know, those men who
attacked him that day?” Arnava continued. “Senapati Rishabha had
said he’ll make enquiries about them.”

“And?” Sumitra gave him an
enquiring glance.

“When the soldiers sent by
Rishabha reached the temple, there were no bodies there. The weapons
they had dropped were also gone. There was no blood nor any signs
that a battle had taken place. The sword that Bhaskara had taken from
them was also missing from the palace armoury.”

Sumitra moved away from the painting
and started to pace back and forth rapidly. “I don’t like this!”
he repeated. “I just… I like this less and less, and.. Damn it!
What do we do?”

“What can we do?” Arnava asked.
“I’m not happy with any of this, but we can’t always be
shadowing him. Besides which, he can take care of himself. I don’t
know what those men were trying to do anyway, since that enchantment
makes him invulnerable.”

“That is true,” Sumitra
conceded. “And he is a very skilled warrior. Arnava,” he paused,
hesitating and then asked hurriedly. “Do you think Maitreya could
be behind this?”

“No!” Arnava was shocked. “How
can you even think that! He’s our brother!”

“Who’s fanatically loyal to
you.” Sumitra said, though he didn’t sound happy. “I know he’s
better these days, but he’s still not fully reconciled to the fact
that Bhaskara turned up out of the blue. And then there’s the
repeated use of the word ‘usurper’. We’ve both heard Maitreya
refer to Bhaskara as usurper more than once.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s doing
these things.” Arnava said. “Besides, none of this is Bhaskara’s
fault. Maitreya is not so irrational as not to understand it. Also,
he’s much more friendly with Bhaskara and yes, he still calls him
usurper, but it’s – it’s like a term of endearment now.”

“I know,” Sumitra muttered. “But
if it’s not him, then someone is trying to make us think it is.”

“Only a fool would entertain such
a doubt. For one thing, how could he have conjured up something like
that thing I saw?” Arnava lifted his brows.

Sumitra frowned. “What did it look
like?”

“It looked- human, I think. I
don’t know, it was covered in a cloak with a hood, I mean fully
covered, as if… as if it was formed of shadows. It’s voice...”
Arnava shivered. “I’ve never heard a human voice like that. I put
an arrow through it, and it just vanished. I mean the arrow went
through the cloak, but there was nothing underneath it.”

“Now, you’re scaring me.”
Sumitra moved back to the portrait, and touched it absently smudging
the paint. “Who could actually control something like that?”

“That’s something we cannot know
unless we know what it was.” Arnava said.

“Should we tell Maitreya, or
father?” Sumitra asked. “Or do we keep this to ourselves?”

Arnava hesitated. “I don’t want
father to worry.”

“And Maitreya?” Sumitra asked.

“I trust him, but… you know what
he’s like. He’ll be so incensed that someone’s been trying to
implicate him that he’ll just… I don’t know, try and go after
whoever it is, tear that whole building down? Start questioning
everyone?” Arnava shrugged. “I think it’s best if we keep this
to ourselves for the moment.”

Sumitra opened his mouth and then
closed it again. “I see, okay. So, you don’t want him to know
because you’re afraid of how he’ll react.” He paused. “Can I
ask you something? Why was he so upset when Bhaskara came? I mean, if
you were upset, I can understand that. You weren’t. I love you just
as much as he does, and yet even I knew that it wasn’t Bhaskara’s
fault. Besides, Bhaskara… he’s so easy to like, so… why was
Maitreya so upset?”

“As you said, he’s fanatically
loyal to me,” Arnava said. “And somehow he felt that I’ve been
shortchanged, and he feels that if Bhaskara hadn’t come here, none
of this would have happened.”

“Father needn’t have
acknowledged him, so openly,” Sumitra said. “Bhaskara did not
know who he was. So how is any of this his fault?”

“It’s not that he blames
Bhaskara precisely,” Arnava said, struggling for words. “He...
he’s just disappointed I think, and not just for me, he never
expected father would’ve been unfaithful to our mother, and… he’s
just disappointed overall, and Bhaskara is a more convenient outlet
than father.”

“Well, that’s how life is. I
mean, nothing goes according to plan. He ought to realize that. He’s
old enough. But yes, I do understand about being disappointed in
father.” Sumitra glanced at the smudged painting. “It’s not
something I expected either.”

“I know,” Arnava sighed. “I
feel the same. And I think Maitreya does know that life doesn’t go
according to plan, but… we’ve all pampered him a lot, and it’s
more difficult for him to get over the disappointment. But it’s
already started, he’s changed, and I don’t want him to feel angry
or upset so he’ll throw himself into a situation where he could be
in danger.”

Sumitra nodded. “So, we keep this
to ourselves. But then what?”

“I don’t know,” Arnava said.
“I think… whatever I saw was not human… and perhaps we need the
help of an enchanter.”

“Somehow,” Sumitra said
morosely. “I like that idea even less.”

“Let’s consider it a last resort
then,” Arnava said. “I wish I could’ve seen the symbol drawn on
the chests of the men who attacked him. It was in black, but the
light was bad. Perhaps that symbol could have given us a clue.”

Sumitra nodded. “No use worrying
about it now,” he said bracingly. “We just need to figure out how
to protect Bhaskara without him realizing.”

They finished their dinner, Shyam
brought his backpack and books, they bid good bye to Shyam’s
parents and Vina who had a face like a thundercloud, and they were on
their way. Aditya concentrated on the road, which was not too
difficult since both Shyam and Abhi were quiet during the drive.
Traffic was not heavy, it being a Sunday night and the night was
clear. They reached home soon and Aditya was locking the car when
something came hurtling out of the night to smash into the car
window.

"What the fuck!" Abhi
swore as he ran into the direction from where it came, with Shyam and
Aditya following. They rounded the house and stopped. There was no
one to be seen anywhere. It was a moonlit night and they would have
seen it if anyone was there.

"What the hell was that?"
Abhi asked.

"I'm as much in the dark as
you." Aditya replied, a worried frown on his face.

"Let's go back," Shyam
said. "There seems to be no one here."

They went back to the house and
Aditya gave a rueful glance at the car. "How am I even going to
explain that to my insurance company?"

Abhi shook his head, a heavy scowl
on his face. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “We can have a look
in the morning.”

Aditya nodded. “Okay,” he said.
“Sorry about that, Shyam.”

“Oh don’t worry about me,”
Shyam said as he took his back pack and entered the house in Abhi’s
wake. “I’ve been around Vina and her boyfriends. A smashed car
window is nothing. It’s not as if it’s your fault, anyway.”

"Shyam can share my room,"
Abhi said as they entered the house. “No need to spruce up the
guest room just for a night.”

"Okay," Aditya said,
distracted. "I’ve some work to do. You two can go to bed if
you want."

"I think I'll watch TV for a
while, if you two don't mind," Shyam said.

"Go ahead," Aditya said as
he went into his own room.

He went into the bathroom and was
surprised to see a faint line of blood on his face. He remembered his
face had stung when the stone or whatever it was had smashed into the
car window. Probably, he got grazed by it or the broken window glass.
He washed his face, grimacing at the faint scratch. Hopefully it
would not leave a scar. He was not vain, but he did not like the idea
of explaining how he got the scar to anyone.

He sat down at his desk and pulled
the stack of assignments that he had to grade, towards him. But he
could not concentrate. Giving it up as a bad job, he went to bed, but
sleep was fitful and he woke well before the dawn. Rising, he made
his way downstairs and out of the house. He opened the car door
carefully, trying not to cause the broken glass to shatter further.
He frowned as he picked up the object that had caused the glass to
shatter. It was not a stone, as he had assumed. He examined the
object, feeling quite confused.

"What’s ‘at?" Shyam
came down the steps, yawning. He looked dishevelled and sleepy.
Aditya could tell that Shyam was probably not used to waking this
early. Very much like Abhi in that respect.

"This is what broke the window
last night," he said as he carefully closed the door and
straightened, holding out the object to Shyam.

Shyam gasped, his eyes losing their
drowsiness. "That is-"

Aditya grimaced. "It’s weird,
actually."

"I'm really feeling freaked
out," Shyam muttered, “I’ve lost all my wish to go back to
bed.” He held it gingerly his hand, and gasped again, "It's
got blood on it!"

"Yea, it grazed my cheek last
night," Aditya’s hand went to where he had put a sticking
plaster on it. It no longer stung.

"I would have thought it a
random act of vandalism but for that thing," Aditya said. He was
feeling quite worried.

"Wha’ th’ng?" A sleepy
voice spoke as Abhi came out into the porch, with a jaw cracking
yawn. "And why ‘re you both up s’ early? It's a holiday,
isn't it?"

Shyam bounded up the stairs. "Yes,
it is, but Prof Aditya just found what was the thing that broke his
car window last night." He held it out to Abhi. "Here’s
the culprit, and it grazed the Professor's face too."

Abhi held his breath, his gaze
focussing. "That's an arrow!"

"Very perceptive," Shyam,
said, grinning.

Aditya gave him a reproving glance
as he nodded. "Yes, but it's like no arrow I've ever seen."

"Er.. Are any of us experts on
arrows here?" Shyam asked.

Aditya chuckled. "No, I accept
that. But all of us have watched enough sports events and movies to
be familiar with the general shape of one. And that looks like an
arrow, but it also looks very strange."

Abhi took it from Shyam's hand.
Aditya was right. It did look strange. It was very light for one,
almost too light. It was made of metal, though Abhi could not guess
what metal could be this light. It was long, slender and straight.
The arrowhead was diamond shaped and the fletching was some feather
of a grey colour. The arrowhead and the shaft appeared to be one
unit, and the shaft was as thick as his finger. He tapped it, and it
didn’t sound hollow.

"It looks so," he paused,
not too sure of how to put it in words. "So perfect," he
said finally.

"It nearly killed your brother
and you are admiring its beauty?" Shyam rolled his eyes.

Aditya could see what Abhi meant
though. Once the initial shock was over, it was impossible not to
admire the craftsmanship of the object. "It didn't even come
close to killing me," he corrected. "It only broke a car
window. And yes, I see what you mean Abhi. Whoever made it is a
master craftsman."

"Was, probably," Shyam
said. "What are the odds of someone in our times making stuff
like that?"

"Why not?" Abhi asked.
"This is a work of art, not a weapon. Any number of artists
might have made it."

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The room was in shambles. Broken
pieces of furniture lay everywhere. Cushions and mattresses were
slashed to pieces. Curtains were ripped from their frames and torn
apart. Bhaskara stared at the room in dismay. True, he did not live
here any more, yet such malicious devastation was inconceivable to
him. Sumitra who was with him, growled in anger as they both stopped
at the threshold.

"Who has done this?"

"I’ve no idea," Bhaskara
muttered. "The house has been uninhabited since, well, you
know."

Sumitra knew all too well. This was
the house that Bhaskara had found and repaired when he had first come
to Jwalamukha. He had lived here over a month before that fateful and
momentous day when he had come to the palace to meet the King for a
job in his army. After that day, the house had again fallen into
disuse. Sumitra had been curious to see the place and Bhaskara had
offered to take him which was how they happened to be here.

"All the other rooms are
intact," Bhaskara said. This was the room he had used as his
bedroom. It was not a large house, just three rooms and a small
courtyard.

"That somehow worries me more,”
Sumitra said. “First that attack on you by unknown masked
assailants the other day, and now this, this -wanton destruction of a
room you used to live in... Someone doesn’t seem to like you much.
In fact, they seem desperate to get rid of you!"

Bhaskara shrugged. "I can take
care of myself." He believed that. And it wasn’t all because
of his mother’s enchantment either. He could not remember her. The
sage had told him that childbirth had weakened her, and he’d
assumed that that was how she’d died.

The two men stepped into the room.
Broken pieces of furniture were strewn all over the floor,
interspersed with the cotton from the mattresses and cushions. Near
to the window, a glint caught their eye.

"It's..." Sumitra paled.
"Now I am officially worried."

Arrowheads were arranged near the
window to form words: "The usurper must die!"

“That means you, I think.”
Sumitra gave his brother a concerned glance.

"A prank," Bhaskara said,
though his teeth were gritted in anger.

“I think not. Not after that
attack the other day.” Sumitra sounded agitated. “We need to find
who’s behind this. We can’t just let this go.”

“I never asked for any of this,”
Bhaskara muttered, looking around the room in bewilderment.

Sumitra looked at his brother, but
with a tact inborn in him, he kept silent. Bhaskara swept away the
arrowheads with his hand, looking furious. Sumitra was furious too,
but he was also frightened. Someone wanted their brother dead,
someone thought of him as a usurper. The use of that word worried him
the most. He had heard someone use that word to describe Bhaskara,
and he was scared that this was the handiwork of Maitreya.

Maitreya was almost blindly loyal to
Arnava and had always been, but he was not malicious and he had been
warming to Bhaskara ever since he had realised that Arnava was
happier and that he genuinely cared for Bhaskara.

And yet, there was the word usurper
which was how Maitreya had always referred to Bhaskara. Sumitra
wasn’t sure what to think, and who to talk to. Could he tell
Arnava? He didn’t know what else to do.

Monday, October 29, 2018

Aditya sat in a corner, feeling out
of place and bored. He and Abhi had arrived at Shyam and Vina’s
house at six and had been ushered into this room. It was a large room
which was already full of people the same age as Abhi and Aditya had
immediately felt out of place. He had found a seat in a corner and
Abhi had stayed at his side for a while before Aditya told him to go
and have fun. Abhi had resisted before gravitating towards his
friends. There were a lot of Aditya’s students among the guests,
and they came over to greet him before going back to mingle with
their friends. Abhi was dancing with a girl whom he remembered having
seen once or twice around the campus. Vina was flirting with one of
the boys from their class named Aakash and Shyam was nowhere to be
found.

He was wondering if it might be
polite to leave and was looking around to see if he can spot Shyam
anywhere when a stranger came and sat down on a chair next to him.

“Hi,” said the man. “You are
Abhi’s brother, aren’t you?”

Aditya looked at the man. He had
never seen him before. He was tall, with a pleasant open face, and
pair of very keen eyes.

“Yes,” Aditya said. “But how
did you know?”

The stranger chuckled. “Easy to
spot the resemblance. I’m Savit, by the way. I’m not from the
college, I’m a family friend of Shyam. That’s how I met Abhi.”

Aditya nodded. “Nice to meet you,”
he said, before relapsing into silence. What did one say in
situations like this? He had never had any skill in making small
talk.

“I’m a total ignoramus where
that is concerned,” Savit grinned. “Just scraped through with
pass marks in school.”

Aditya smiled faintly, not knowing
how to answer or if any answer was expected.

“You’re not drinking,” Savit
observed.

“I have to drive home,” Aditya
answered.

“Hmm… and your parents are on
holiday, I heard.”

“Not exactly. They have gone to
visit our grandparents.” Aditya wondered how Savit knew about their
parents not being home, but he did not explain that his grandmother
was ill and his parents would not be returning in the near future,
not till she improved anyway.

"I'm not, but I'm not
comfortable with people I don't know." Aditya was offended. He
wasn’t anti-social. He just liked his own company or those of his
books more.

“Sounds anti-social to me,”
Shyam teased. “If you’re tired of the party, go and have dinner.
Buffet is arranged outside. You can go home afterwards."

"Abhi planning to stay here
tonight?" Aditya asked.

"I think so. We'll be glad to
have you too, you know." Shyam said.

"I think I'll go. I dread
having to make small talk to people I don't know." Aditya hadn’t
meant to have said it, but he wasn’t regretting having said it
either.

Shyam laughed. "Well, Saina
saved you from Aakash, didn't she? You didn't have to make any small
talk."

"Not with him. But there was no
one to save me from that Savit guy."

"Savit?" There was a
slight frown on Shyam’s face.

"He said he was a family
friend." Aditya said.

"Oh him! Yea. He's a bore. Come
to think of it, he wanted to stay the night too. And so did a couple
of others." Shyam frowned. "I’m beginning to see that we
don’t have enough room. Abhi will need to go home. How am I even
going to explain that?"

Aditya chuckled. "How fortunate
l did not take you up on your invitation!"

"I'm bad at organizing,"
Shyam grimaced. "I will probably need to sleep on the couch too.
Never mind. You go have your dinner. I shall bring Abhi too."

"He won't be happy,"
Aditya muttered.

"No, he won't. I'm hoping
he'll..." Shyam's brow cleared. "I got it! I'll come with
you two. I just need to throw a few things in a bag. How lucky
tomorrow is a holiday!"

"What? But it's your birthday!
You can't just leave your guests and go like that!"

"Vina will manage them. She
owes me one anyway. And mum and dad won't mind too much. You did meet
them today, didn't you?"

"Yes, when we came in. Why do
you ask as if they’re strangers to me?”

“Just ‘coz they’ll be asking
me later if you and Abhi attended. They’re not familiar with most
of this crowd, but they know and like the two of you.”

“Well, I haven't seen them since I
came in." Aditya couldn’t really make head or tail out of
Shyam’s explanation.

"Oh, they'll be around
somewhere. They don't enjoy this crowd, but they enjoy parties. I’ll
just go and tell them I’m coming with you, and we’ll all have our
dinner and we’ll go.”

"Well, if you're sure, you're
welcome to come with us." Aditya gave in.